Tribune Editorial: Free speech should be an international value

Saturday

Sep 29, 2012 at 7:03 AMSep 29, 2012 at 7:33 AM

Speaking last week at the United Nations, President Obama devoted a considerable portion of his address to outlining the American argument for free speech. His appeal came in the wake of protests and violence across the Muslim world fueled in part by an anti-Islam video posted on the Internet.

Speaking last week at the United Nations, President Obama devoted a considerable portion of his address to outlining the American argument for free speech. His appeal came in the wake of protests and violence across the Muslim world fueled in part by an anti-Islam video posted on the Internet.

Obama condemned the video as “crude and disgusting,” but he explained that freedom of speech is guaranteed even if the views are abhorrent.

“I know there are some who ask why we don’t just ban such a video,” he said. “And the answer is enshrined in our laws: Our Constitution protects the right to practice free speech. Here in the United States, countless publications provoke offense. Like me, the majority of Americans are Christian, and yet we do not ban blasphemy against our most sacred beliefs.”

“We do not do so because we support hateful speech,” Obama said, “but because our founders understood that without such protections, the capacity of each individual to express their own views and practice their own faith may be threatened. We do so because in a diverse society, efforts to restrict speech can quickly become a tool to silence critics and oppress minorities.”

Unfortunately, the president’s eloquent case for freedom of speech did not resonate with several Muslim heads of state at the U.N. meeting. Mohamed Morsi, newly elected president of Egypt, condemned the violence spurred by the online video, but dismissed the idea of free speech allowing attacks on Islam.

“Egypt respects freedom of expression — freedom of expression that is not used to incite hatred against anyone,” Morsi said. “We expect from others, as they expect from us, that they respect our cultural specifics and religious references, and not seek to impose concepts or cultures that are unacceptable to us. Insults against the prophet of Islam, Muhammad, are not acceptable. We will not allow anyone to do this by word or by deed.”

Abed Rabbu Mansour Hadi, president of Yemen, took an even more forceful stance. “These behaviors find people who defend them under the justification of the freedom of expression,” he said. “These people overlook the fact that there should be limits for the freedom of expression, especially if such freedom blasphemes the beliefs of nations and defames their figures.”

Pakistan’s president, Asif A. Zardari, called for the criminalization of religious insults. “The international community must not become silent observers and should criminalize such acts that destroy the peace of the world and endanger world security by misusing freedom of expression,” he said.

The views of the Muslim leaders reflect a classic logical inconsistency. They are all for free speech, they insist, unless somebody says or writes something they don’t like. This, on its face, is not free speech.

Obama pointed out that with the ubiquity of cell phones and social media, “the notion that we can control the flow of information is obsolete.” He echoed the time-honored ideal that “the strongest weapon against hateful speech is not repression; it is more speech — the voices of tolerance that rally against bigotry and blasphemy, and lift up the values of understanding and mutual respect.”

It’s worth noting that philosophy and reality don’t always mesh. Americans’ embrace of a broad definition of free speech is rather radical even by the standards of the Western world. Most European countries place some restrictions on free speech that our First Amendment would not allow, and so it’s hardly surprising that nations with long histories of tyranny and repression would find it difficult to buy into America’s practice of near-absolute free expression.

Still, the U.S. brand of free speech is the world’s gold standard, and it ought to be universally emulated.

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